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Genesis

The beginning of everithing

Rome Ad 2006

(Versione Italiana Di Seguito)

The alley cut a straight line across the roofs of Rome, like a black gash across an orange canvas. Countless other alleys opened up on it, forming a tangle of cobbled streets. An hour after sunset, the alley exuded both the excitement of those who were getting ready for another night of madness, and the adrenaline of those who, armed with knives, pans, pots, glasses – or even simply the clenched fists and tight jaws of the bodyguards – were preparing to feed and serve the nocturnal masses, hungry for oblivion. Inebriated by the twittering and tingling of the aperitif glasses, P. walked in the middle of the alley. Nervous pace, eyes alert (two extra pupils on the back of his head), he was heading without hesitation towards his destination. His white and green Stan Smiths (tied with Velcro, obviously) smoothly and softly pressed over the cobblestones, like the paws of a mountain lion. The pants of his deep-blue satin suit, one size too large, closed up over his ankles with a short zip, falling perfectly over his Adidas sneakers. The upper part of the matching suit, a satin jacket with a central zip, broke up its blue with a single white line over his ribs, at the height of his nipples. The sleeves, rolled up to the elbows, let his his tattooed forearms show. Short hair, somewhere between skin and one centimeter, with a timeless and yet somehow already unhip taper, highlighted the features of a pear-shaped head, adorned by a little childhood scar, just beside the atlas, obtained when he had been run over by a bmx bike in an underground parking lot.

A quick stop at the tobacco shop. Cigarettes, for her and for himself. Walking down the last stretch of the alley that was left between him and the destition of that paranoid promenade, he observed the terraces of restaurants filling up with tourists, the only people who would eat so early, and the legs of employees peeking beneath half-lowered shop shutters, hurrying over the last cleaning and cashing in before closing time. He looked at the restaurant at the end of the street, on the right, its black curtain stretching over a few heads on the terrace. Butterflies began their dance in his stomach. Having reached the restaurant, he turned abruptly into the bar where she worked. The barman greeted him and shook his hand.

Hey P, everything all right? – he asked.

All good. What’s up with you?

Work, P, as always. C has went to get the ice, she’ll be back any moment. Wanna drink something while you wait?

A nice prosecco. What have you got?

I have a Valdobbiadene I just opened, I made a couple of spritzes. That works?

Perfect, zio.

As he took his second, nervous sip, she arrived with the eyes. Her radiant smile lit up the semi-darkness of the room, as it was made even more charming by a hint of tension in her look, expressed by the tense tendon in the neck, and by a pulsing vein in her temple. Her long light-brown hair was gathered in a chignon behind the head; she wore two simple, round and glittering earrings, a black tight-fitting shirt with long sleeves, a short waitress apron, a pair of classic cigarette jeans, and sneakers – the most comfortable she could find, to face a long and intense evening of service in the barricades. They hugged with their eyes. They could not touch each other nor kiss in public, all the more so in that restaurant.

Look here, you like it? – asked P, showing his forearm and turning it in the air.

A freshly tattooed star, still red and swollen, contained C’s name in italics. P smiled, thinking of a few hours earlier, when, about to prick his skin with a slightly trembling needle, the tattooer, a friend that had been scribbling over him for years, had asked him:

Are you really sure? You’ve never done it before….

Don’t worry, she’s the right one – had replied P reassuringly.

After all, P never had a talent for well-pondered choices: either radical endeavours, or no endeavours at all.

You must be crazy – said the barman, grabbing his arm – cover it up, hurry!

Barely concealing her joy, C started messily tidying up the bar, distractedly moving around some glasses and wiping off the counter here and there.

Want to eat? – she asked P.

Why not, after all I’ve lost a lot of blood for love – replied P, jokingly.

What would you like?

Aside from you? – he continued to provoke her, making her blush – Yesterday you mentioned mussels and pecorino, how about that?

Perfect, I’ll check in the kitchen. What are you drinking? – she asked.

The Valdobbiadene, I think.

She filled his glass before disappearing in the kitchen. The wine had relaxed P’s nerves, and his mind could finally cloud up, lightening the pressure of secrecy. The homemade tagliolini appeared on the counter before him, waking him up from the oblivion of an aperitif on an empty stomach. The smell of the mollusks drowned in white wine and garlic seeped up his nostrils, almost bringing him to tears of happiness. The sight, chromatically delighted by the red of the cherry tomatoes cut in half and roasted, as well as the parsley’s green minced as finely as sand, triggered, along with his taste, a sensual orgasm. In his mouth, the acidity of the tomatoes and wine was sweetened by the gentleness of the mussel and by the slight greasiness of the pecorino – all of which laid upon a spicy background, essential from any mussel-based dish. The second glass of prosecco evaporated like the smoke released by those divine tagliolini.

Meanwhile the restaurant began bustling: the terrace was filling up and the bar’s printer started vomiting orders.

I better go, – said P.

Where to? – asked C.

You know where. I’ll be around ‘till late.

Alright, I’ll call you once I’m done then. A kiss.

Walking out of the main door, he shook the bodyguard’s hand, and the man, patting him on the shoulder, whispered in his ear, more as advice than as a threat:

You better let that one there alone…

Too late, thought P, with a faint smile.

As soon as he was outside, he turned on his telephone, which started vibrating only a few meters later.

Here we are – answered P.

How’s it going my boy?

All right. You?

You out tonight?

Want to come by shop?

Sure, half an hour and I’ll be there.

All right buddy, see you soon.

After putting his phone back in his pocket, he slid his hand over his boxers, to make sure, almost unconsciously, that the dope was still in position, beneath his balls. Adjusting the little envelope into its walking position (after it had flattened on the bar stool), he headed towards his 90’s white Golf 3, with his head high and his hands in his pockets, perked up by the vapours of the Valdobbiadene and ready to begin his nocturnal rounds.

The white Golf was parked at Gianicolo, in a patch of semi-darkness due to a malfunctioning streetlight. P, leaning on the hood, smoked a cigarette while admiring the glittering, immortality of his city by night. Around 1am the Smart sped down the road and stopped. C got out, and without a word, she stuck her lips to his, in a long, liberating kiss.

Shall we go? – she asked.

The Golf tried to keep up with the tiny Mercedes engine squeezed into the Smart, but C cut through the night air of Monteverde without much regard for traffic lights or for driving rules in general, and his old 90’s Golf panted to keep the same pace. Her spaceshuttle sucked in the streetlights of a deserted Colli Portuensi boulevard, launching uphill into a skyway that turned right and sloped abruptly, prompting the nocturnal pilots to make a mad and glorious entrance into the Trullo neighbourhood, an area that rose out of the furrow of who knows what ancient river. The Golf, too, had its moment of glory, launching with its dead weight down the slope. The two cars parked beside each other.

On the glass slab that covered the wicker desk of the bedroom, half a dozen neat lines of white dust. P dangled a rolled-up banknote with his fingers, taking in abundant puffs from a cigarette drenched with coke. In a short time, the atmosphere of the small room had thickened with cigarette smoke, impregnating everything else. After the first lines had vanished into the banknote, the two begin to whisper rivers of words, carried by the waves of a chemical well-being, puffing all the while a cigarette after the other. When, a few more lines later, the blend, rather than the coke, began to produce its effect, the conversation became slowed down, the jaws tightened and the flow of words imploded in their brains, generating pre-paranoid thoughts. After intense sex covered in chemical sweat, P wetted a cigarette with coke, lit it, puffed with the little breath he had left, disclosed his jaws from their steel grip and whispered raucously:

We can’t stay here anymore.

I know, – answered C.

In the silence that ensued, the crackling of the cigarette’s brazier resembled that of a medieval stake, in which those who did not conform where burned alive.

Let’s go away. Let’s leave. We collect as much money as we can, then we’ll see – said C.

Are you sure? You know you can’t come back after that.

No doubts. Let’s go.

The night was turning into day, one of the days of April. The buzzing of their thoughts petered out in the smoky silence of the room, their pupils rolled backward underneath their eyelids, in a pill-induced REM sleep. The two new fugitives, all the more united through the pact they had just sealed, passively followed oniric, electrically-transmitted dreams deliriums of the psychotropic molecules they had absorbed, towards an ever-relaxing delirium of the sense. A new nucleus had just been conceived, and a new journey was about to start.